PC-Task is now free!

[fryguy]

I do realise that i've asked about it before in this thread

But does anyone have a working hardfile with MSDOS installed for PC-TasK?

[LuMan]

When you find one, fryguy, run dosuae on it, so you can have an Amiga emulated in dos, emulated on an Amiga

It'll be like infinity.. or singularity.. or something!!

[emufan]

i've zoned two hardfile i've found on those BBS isos:
PCX-HDD-MSDOS6.lha (PC Emulation Hardfile MSDOS 6.22)
PCHDF_MSDOS622.lzx (PC Emulation Hardfile MSDOS 6)

not tested, but give them a try.

[fryguy]

Originally Posted by LuMan

When you find one, fryguy, run dosuae on it, so you can have an Amiga emulated in dos, emulated on an Amiga

It'll be like infinity.. or singularity.. or something!!

Originally Posted by emufan

i've zoned two hardfile i've found on those BBS isos:
PCX-HDD-MSDOS6.lha (PC Emulation Hardfile MSDOS 6.22)
PCHDF_MSDOS622.lzx (PC Emulation Hardfile MSDOS 6)

not tested, but give them a try.

Thanks!

[amigoun]

I wonder if source code to PC-Task survived or maybe some kind of improved newer version than the last v4.4 released.
Plans were great at the time, implementing soundblaster audio and adding mmu support to get faster graphics... Also PPC version was planned.
Still best PC emulator available for Amiga, perfect speed and compatibility.

[eXeler0]

How does it compare to latest DOSBox? More or less compatible?
Will it run stuff that have use dos4gw (extended memory)?

[Hewitson]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

How does it compare to latest DOSBox?

Terribly.

Originally Posted by eXeler0

More or less compatible?

Much less compatible.

Originally Posted by eXeler0

Will it run stuff that have use dos4gw (extended memory)?

I have no idea.

[Michael Sykes]

It runs "scorched earth" thats all that matters...

[amigoun]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

How does it compare to latest DOSBox? More or less compatible?
Will it run stuff that have use dos4gw (extended memory)?

With the recent version of DOSBox of course less compatible.
It runs dos4gw (and other extenders) fine.

[TroyWilkins]

Does anyone know if there is a way of changing the text font that it uses for text screens, such as for the MS-DOS screen mode, so that it can be readable at higher resolutions than 640x200 (such as 640x480) without it only taking up the top half of the screen?

My apologies if this has been covered elsewhere, I have had a look around but was unable to find anything relevant.

Thanks.

[emufan]

here they talk about the problem. solution maybe the mode.com command: mode co40

edit: this does work in dosbox emulator, gives a bigger fontsize.
here is a help mage for the command - co80 switches back to normal mode.

[Jope]

Mode co80 and mode co40 adjust the amount of viewable columns. 80 and 40 respectively.

This of course increases the character size, as both take up the whole width of the monitor.

Most software will force a switch back to 80 column mode, that won't solve the actual problem.

[trixster]

Originally Posted by emufan

i've zoned two hardfile i've found on those BBS isos:
PCX-HDD-MSDOS6.lha (PC Emulation Hardfile MSDOS 6.22)
PCHDF_MSDOS622.lzx (PC Emulation Hardfile MSDOS 6)

not tested, but give them a try.

Any chance you could pop them back into the zone?

[emufan]

Originally Posted by trixster

Any chance you could pop them back into the zone?

they were saved on the ftp. take a look here.

[trixster]

Nice one, thanks!

[TroyWilkins]

Originally Posted by TroyWilkins

Does anyone know if there is a way of changing the text font that it uses for text screens, such as for the MS-DOS screen mode, so that it can be readable at higher resolutions than 640x200 (such as 640x480) without it only taking up the top half of the screen?

My apologies if this has been covered elsewhere, I have had a look around but was unable to find anything relevant.

Thanks.

Originally Posted by emufan

here they talk about the problem. solution maybe the mode.com command: mode co40

edit: this does work in dosbox emulator, gives a bigger fontsize.
here is a help mage for the command - co80 switches back to normal mode.

Originally Posted by Jope

Mode co80 and mode co40 adjust the amount of viewable columns. 80 and 40 respectively.

This of course increases the character size, as both take up the whole width of the monitor.

Most software will force a switch back to 80 column mode, that won't solve the actual problem.

Perhaps these screen captures will help show what I'm talking about? It appears to me that PC-Task is using a CGA style text screen, instead of the higher resolution EGA/VGA text screens.

As you can see in the screen capture, it uses a fixed width and height - 640x200 - for the 80x25 character grid.



On a "real" EGA/VGA display, it doesn't use 8x8 pixel character cells.

On EGA, it uses 640×350, and each character uses a 8×14 pixel character cell, to give the 80x25 character grid.

On VGA, it's 720×400, each character using 9×16 pixel character cell to give the 80x25 character grid.

mode.com won't help in this regard. This seems hard coded into PC-Task, which means that using text mode in a window on a public screen with a resolution of 400 pixels or higher makes the screen too "short", and on say an 800x600 screen, it starts to become too small to be really useful.



It would be nice to have it use the higher resolution EGA and or VGA text screen modes if available, and if the graphics adapter was chosen as EGA or better, but it appears to me that PC-Task would need to be updated for this to happen.

[TroyWilkins]

Originally Posted by TroyWilkins

Does anyone know if there is a way of changing the text font that it uses for text screens, such as for the MS-DOS screen mode, so that it can be readable at higher resolutions than 640x200 (such as 640x480) without it only taking up the top half of the screen?

My apologies if this has been covered elsewhere, I have had a look around but was unable to find anything relevant.

Thanks.

I found the manual for PC-Task 3 today: https://archive.org/details/PC-Task_...94_Hames_Chris

As I was reading it, and I found the solution:

use the tooltype/shell argument:

FONT=name.font
If you wish to specify your own font for use during emulation use this
keyword. You can supply 8*8, 8*14 and 8*16 fonts.

Mind you, I have yet to try this, as I'm now looking for a suitable 8*14 or 8*16 font to try.

[Jacques]

Hi Guys, does anyone have a nice hardfile for PC-Task / PCX that would contain DOS, Windows 3.x and some games, too? Something else than what's available via EAB Grandis search (found DOS + Win 3.1, but no games)

Or what would be very useful, is there maybe PC or Amiga tool to handle hardfile images and simply copy software onto them?

[BastyCDGS]

Hi Jacques!

Originally Posted by Jacques

Something else than what's available via EAB Grandis search (found DOS + Win 3.1, but no games)

Over an half year ago, I uploaded a complete Total DOS Collection to EAB file server, it contains more than 100GB of DOS games. Should be enough. They can be found in my upload directory on FTP server.